“Gaymer” trademark has to go, say reddit's gay gamers

Some people like being segregated, DSF1942. It allows them to think that they are 'better' than someone else.

Why do they have a Gay Pride parade? What about Hetero Pride? Where's our parade?

Every other parade is an hetero parade. I still must be careful not to hold hands nor kiss and cuddle in public my significant other because he has the same gender as myself. The Gay Pride is the one event, once every year, when we can try and make up for 363 days of semi-hiding by being as open and in-your-face as possible about our sexual identity. Plus it's a great way to meet to try and make new friends w/o the risk of rejection or worse.

Anyone see The Dictator and how he changed various words to his name? This reminds me of the scene where the doctors is telling the guy "The good news is that you are HIV Aladin." *guy smiles* "The bad news is that you are HIV Aladin." *then the guy alternated between sad and happy, not sure which to be*

Some people like being segregated, DSF1942. It allows them to think that they are 'better' than someone else.

Why do they have a Gay Pride parade? What about Hetero Pride? Where's our parade?

People seem to keep missing the sarcasm in this post.

Anyway, on topic. I think it was a douche move to trademark the word gaymer since the guy did not come up with it. I'm not sure how much ground either party has though... in one hand, it's not really that common of a word, even though is a popular enough internet word, so he may have a valid trademark. On the other hand, I'm not sure he has much of a case trying to decide who uses it if he's not proving damages, nor it seems that he should be able to keep the brand for himself if it's been used since the 90s.

As for the point of self-segregation that seems to keep coming along: it's not self-segregation. Finding a community with shared interest in more than one area is not self-segregation if other people that are not gay are welcome to attend, as it's been always be the case. I mean, sure, you will indeed finde Someone supermilitant, but that doesn't mean that the community is separating hermetically from the world.

I find it that more often than not straight people are more than welcome to these events and some show up in support of friends, family, or their principles... others don't simply for lack of interest in the subject, or because since it has gay in the title, They decide they are not welcome or fear of being thought of being gay for participating. The thing is, nobody is being excluded on either side.

The need of a gaymer community exists, however, because of the constant discrimination LGBTQ people suffer from many larger communities, like gamer ones. Many girl gamers also suffer such treatment, like they have to prove their worth for the gamer community if they are women.

Wow, I can just imagine the conversation at orbital HQ that happened before this article was written.Bloke 1: "You know, those articles where we basically copy paste forum posts get us a lot of page views, and don't require any actual effort"Bloke 2: "Aren't you concerned about people thinking that the quality of coverage has gone down here?"Bloke 1: "So I was thinking, why not do the same thing, but with r/games?"Bloke 2: "Great idea, I can feel my brain dribbling out my nose!"

Or something. Really guys? Reddit as a source for articles?

Reddit wasn't the source. To be straightforward about it, EFF was the source for this article. We read their blog and press releases, and while there's plenty of stuff we skip over, there are also cases that are interesting or newsworthy that we want to bring to people's attention. This was one of those, and I added in parts of the Reddit post I thought were interesting. No one's suggesting it's the most earth-shattering legal action of all time, but I certainly thought it was worth a short post.

About the article: even if gaymer isn't common by any standards, it appears that it was clearly in use long before the trademark registration. It's basic trademark law that you cannot simply register common-use words as trademarks. That's why trademarks such as AppStore (a store that sells apps) are challenged - it would prevent anyone from simply describing their own store for apps. So, dick move, Chris Vizzini.

DSF1942 wrote:

Why is gaymer a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A gamer is a gamer, your sex, skin color or sexual preference shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

Why is gay a word? Or straight, for that matter? We all find little drawers in our heads to file aspects of reality. Usually they're descriptive, but sometimes they also have a "value", e.g. straight=good, gay=bad. This word was created to describe a community that came together for their sexual orientation and passion for games. It says nothing about it being an exclusive club or keeping straightmers out.

esper wrote:

I thought Gaymer were gay and lesbian elves in Elder Scrolls.

<insert orson-welles-clapping-gif here> Bravo sir, your first post is what I immediately thought to myself

As a bisexual I can say that I think gay pride parades are the absolute worst thing for our LGBT community. Nothing says "we're just like all of you" like guys wearing assless chaps and feathers and shit.

Why is gaymer a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A gamer is a gamer, your sex, skin color or sexual preference shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

Abresh wrote:

Some people like being segregated, DSF1942. It allows them to think that they are 'better' than someone else.

Or it could help them easily find other people who share their interests, traits, views and experiences. Or it could be about offering support for a traditionally scorned and vilified minority. Or it could serve to highlight a social issue that won't get solved by pretending it doesn't exist. Or it could be about "inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness."

That is just a plain dumb argument. I agree with DSF1942, the word does not exist and why should there be a word to differentiate some particular group of people?

Should we also have them:woymer for women that play?Or meymer for differentiate men playing games?

Being gay is a sexual orientation, what in the world does this have to do with gaming? Leave your sexuality at home or in private, you don´t need to identify what your sexual orientation is when playing games or scream to the world what you prefer in sexual terms in closed doors, if you want this then you have serious mental issues. Im trying to make sense what does sexuality have to do in terms of gaming and not on work, military, justice, or just any other aspect of live. If you think to classify a group of people on their sexuality in gaming should we not do the same in work? Ahh wait that is discrimination...

So a child molester should also have this own word for gaming online? Or someone that likes blond women should also have his own word when he games? How about differentiate users that play games and are short of fat?

Going back to the topic, its a bad move for him to do this, but this is not illegal as far as I know. The word does not really exist, so legally I think the trademark is valid.

Why is gaymer a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A gamer is a gamer, your sex, skin color or sexual preference shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

Abresh wrote:

Some people like being segregated, DSF1942. It allows them to think that they are 'better' than someone else.

Or it could help them easily find other people who share their interests, traits, views and experiences. Or it could be about offering support for a traditionally scorned and vilified minority. Or it could serve to highlight a social issue that won't get solved by pretending it doesn't exist. Or it could be about "inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness."

That is just a plain dumb argument. I agree with DSF1942, the word does not exist and why should there be a word to differentiate some particular group of people?

Should we also have them:woymer for women that play?Or meymer for differentiate men playing games?

Being gay is a sexual orientation, what in the world does this have to do with gaming? Leave your sexuality at home or in private, you don´t need to identify what your sexual orientation is when playing games or scream to the world what you prefer in sexual terms in closed doors, if you want this then you have serious mental issues.

Or maybe, just maybe, they'd like to get through a single FPS session without someone calling them gay, fag, queer, etc. And that's regardless of whether they actually are homosexual or not. I'm not gay and I find this kind of pervasive gay-bashing tiresome and dickish. I can't imagine what it must be like for people to use one's sexual orientation as an insult.

Why is gaymer a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A gamer is a gamer, your sex, skin color or sexual preference shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

you and I may not care if the people we're playing with are male, female, gay, transgender, or whatever, but there's enough horrible bigots out there that the non-white-heterosexual-male crowd feels the need to create their own safe space where they can avoid all the vile, contemptible nonsense from the general public.

What's next, creating a community where there will be no teamkillers and trolls? People should grow some skin.

Gamer is a word describing a person who plays games, and it already marks a subset of people with a common interest.

Gaymer is a (badly) made up word which further divides people with the common interest (gaming) based on their sexual orientation which is grossly stupid and totally unrelated to playing regular computer games. They are excluding themselves by creating such a subset.

I really don't see a big deal here -- I play games online, and as long as I am not playing a game with sexual content and other human players I really don't care about the other player's sexual orientation.

Believe it or not, some people just play games because it's fun, not everyone out there is looking for a spouse or a soulmate while killing zombies or grinding quests.

Moreover, I have yet to see someone asking me about my sexual preferences while playing, much less refusing to play if they don't like the answer.

Yes, there are assholes out there playing games, they TK people, they yell teenage insults such as "Fag!" or "Bitch!", they ruin the game in billion different ways, but they do that to everyone, yet only gay population is so butt-hurt about it that they feel the need to segregate.

I find such level of butt-hurt really hard to believe and I think it all boils down to attention seeking, further alienating, and then merchandizing of that particular population which is obviously stupid enough to allow someone to do that to them.

Alfonse wrote:

Or maybe, just maybe, they'd like to get through a single FPS session without someone calling them gay, fag, queer, etc. And that's regardless of whether they actually are homosexual or not. I'm not gay and I find this kind of pervasive gay-bashing tiresome and dickish. I can't imagine what it must be like for people to use one's sexual orientation as an insult.

Once I was playing L4D co-op and someone asked where I am from. When I said "I am from Serbia" another guy (obviously Albanian) team-killed me on the spot saying "I am from Kosovo, die motherfucker".

Should I now create a group of Serbian gamers and stop playing with the rest of the world because of that?

Personally, I don't think so because I would be excluding myself from a lot of good games with normal people, and I also don't think gay people should do that either.

If anything, they should pay less attention to in-game name calling, because it is not targeted at their sexual orientation regardless of the words being used. Whether someone says "fag", "bitch", "queer", "asshole", "monkey" they always mean the same thing -- you suck at playing.

The Gay Pride is the one event, once every year, when we can try and make up for 363 days of semi-hiding by being as open and in-your-face as possible about our sexual identity.

I appreciate your insight into those events which I've only participated in through college band, so I hope you don't mind my asking (in an entirely joshing fashion) what you do with the other free day(s) in a 365- or 366-day year?

All kidding aside, I can understand the desire and need for safe harbors against online trollery and cruelty. The trademark issue is interesting and I'm curious to see where it goes. Even if "gaymer" is in such common use to be considered generic, I think someone could try different variations or word combinations to come up with something trademarkable.

Why is gaymer a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A gamer is a gamer, your sex, skin color or sexual preference shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

This plus other posts about people wondering this - I can understand this, but it's not about segregation at all.

I'm all for equality regardless of sex, skin colour, sexual preferences, religion belief and all that. However I'm deaf - and this mean I use sign language as my primary language and my understanding of English is fairly simple although I read a lot to keep up my understanding.

In society, I'm "segregated" but not on purpose - it's simply because I speak a different language. I use sign language as I've mentioned and being able to follow hearing people talking is near impossible for me and my speech isn't always understandable for everyone.

When I go out, I go with other deaf people and anyone else that use sign language. It's easier for me and I can relax more instead of having to work really hard trying to lip-read and missing about 95% of all conversations that can happen in a pub with a group of friends.

We also have this for games too - although we don't have as an imaginative name - basically just deafgamers - ie look at this website - http://www.deafgamers.com.

Why's that? Because when I want to play a game - I want a game that have subtitles/captions. Just about all of Valve's recent games are awesome for deaf gamers with full closed captions support for all dialogue and even sound effects.

Also in a multiplayer game sometime I might want to play in a team, and playing with other deaf gamers who just get working in a team without the use of voice is useful sometimes - although I'm perfectly happy to just jump into any online game and just play, voice isn't an issue the majority of times.

Basically I play with anyone, but sometime I'll like to play with other deaf gamers in a more focused team game where voice will never be an issue.

So in a way I can understand why there's gaymer - there's sometime silly kids throwing gay insults etc although many servers I go on tend to have admins/mods policing so it's rarely an issue now :-)

For those of you who don't understand why gay gamers want their own might want their own subreddit, just spend any time on reddit in general and you'll see exactly why. You can see one anti-gay slur after another. /r/gaymers is a safe place for people to talk about games and whatever else gay gamers want to discuss, which is often- surprise- GUYS, and I doubt that's a topic that would really interest most heterosexual male gamers, now would it?

Wouldnt it be more effective to, as gays, leave Reddit entirely as long as they dont have the decency to tackle the homophobia there? I have zero issue with people being banned for tossing around gay slurs and I am not gay myself.

Gays are not an inconsequential demographic with, generally speaking, good disposable incomes who are interesting for advertisers.

The dude who registered the 'gaymer' trademark, his last name is Vizzini.

In the last paragraph of the story, Reddit user Ozuri seizes this to his advantage in his argument why the trademark should be stricken, weaving in Inigo Montoya's "I do not think it means what you think it means" quip to that Vizzini from The Princess Bride.

Still don't understand why gay/lesbian/transgender people feel the need to highlight the fact they're not heterosexual. Ironically, the more they shout/scream/campaign about them being 'not heterosexual', the more they drive the wedge between heterosexuals and homosexuals.

In the UK, Stonewall ran a nationwide campaign saying "Some people are gay, get over it!"

My first response was "So you're gay? Get over it"

(As in, "Why do you feel the need to highlight the fact you're gay??")

About the article: even if gaymer isn't common by any standards, it appears that it was clearly in use long before the trademark registration. It's basic trademark law that you cannot simply register common-use words as trademarks. That's why trademarks such as AppStore (a store that sells apps) are challenged - it would prevent anyone from simply describing their own store for apps. So, dick move, Chris Vizzini.

DSF1942 wrote:

Why is gaymer a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A gamer is a gamer, your sex, skin color or sexual preference shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

Why is gay a word? Or straight, for that matter? We all find little drawers in our heads to file aspects of reality. Usually they're descriptive, but sometimes they also have a "value", e.g. straight=good, gay=bad. This word was created to describe a community that came together for their sexual orientation and passion for games. It says nothing about it being an exclusive club or keeping straightmers out.

esper wrote:

I thought Gaymer were gay and lesbian elves in Elder Scrolls.

<insert orson-welles-clapping-gif here> Bravo sir, your first post is what I immediately thought to myself

Gay is an appropriated word that used to mean carefree/happy, in the late 19th century it started to morph into a word used inside the gay community.

Straight (meaning hetrosexual) came from being the reverse of bent which was a part of a slang term for homosexuals in London (Bent as a 9 bob note)

both words have now been "owned" by their respective communities and has some of the sting taken out of them.

This is the first time I've seen the word "gaymer" used in a non-derogatory way. Even if the person(s) in question isn't homosexual, it's still usually used to bash gaming in general - at least from my experience. Who knew.

Why is gaymer a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A gamer is a gamer, your sex, skin color or sexual preference shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

Of course. Finding a group of people to belong to is a primal instinct, and naming that group is a logical extension. Besides, the differentiation would exist whether you named it or not.

Differentiating ourselves isn't inherently bad. It only becomes a problem if people start saying (and believing) "my group is better than your group." That is not an inevitable consequence of differentiation.

Still don't understand why gay/lesbian/transgender people feel the need to highlight the fact they're not heterosexual.

Suppose you are a blue person in a sea of orange people. On the television orange people, in the street orange people. Orange people talking to other orange people about orange things that you couldn't relate to. All the time, orange orange orange, from everyone. You're drowning in orange people and orange talk. Even if you're lucky enough to be in the more enlightened areas where being blue wasn't looked on as inherently vile evil and disgusting, you're still utterly surrounded by the orangeness of everything.

What do you do? We're inherently social animals, but you don't really fit with everybody else. You probably subjugate your blueness and try to fit in with the oranges. It doesn't really work, but everybody else is orange, so what else can you do? For years you deny your blueness. You are so immersed in orange culture at this point that you hate yourself for being blue. You're brimming over with self loathing, loneliness, and denial.

Then you discover a group of blue people! Finally, you're not the only blue person. There are others, they talk about blue things! Finally you fit in. Finally you don't feel like who you are is wrong. An enormous weight has been lifted from your soul. You can actually be yourself!

However, you still have to wade back into the utterly orange world in order to survive. You still get bombarded by orangeness on the television, on the radio, at your place of business. But now you don't feel like blue is bad. You finally conquered your self loathing and insecurity, but you're still bombarded by a culture that devalues you (and your new group of blue friends). You used to channel the frustration that generated into self loathing, but now you need something else to do with it. What do you pick?

There isn't one right answer to that question, but is it so surprising that some people pick trying to inject a little blue into the sea of orange wherever they can? Unfortunately some may take it too far, and choose outright hostility towards orange culture. That may not be productive, but it is certainly understandable - after conquering self loathing, turning that loathing towards the thing that made you hate yourself is a pretty human response.

Still don't understand why gay/lesbian/transgender people feel the need to highlight the fact they're not heterosexual. Ironically, the more they shout/scream/campaign about them being 'not heterosexual', the more they drive the wedge between heterosexuals and homosexuals.

In the UK, Stonewall ran a nationwide campaign saying "Some people are gay, get over it!"

My first response was "So you're gay? Get over it"

(As in, "Why do you feel the need to highlight the fact you're gay??")

Erm... because society generally assumes that people are not gay and tends to portray gay people as something unusual or as being stereotypically camp.Are you also offended that women like to highlight the fact that they are not men? All those ladies are just driving a wedge between themselves and us men.What about christians who like to highlight the fact that they aren't heathens?

Or, for comedic effect:

anti-xiphon wrote:

Still don't understand why heterosexual people feel the need to highlight the fact they're not gay. Ironically, the more they shout/scream/campaign about them being 'not gay', the more they drive the wedge between heterosexuals and homosexuals.

In the UK, [too many ad agencies to count] ran a nationwide campaign saying "[you should buy our product because it will impress the opposite sex]"

My first response was "So you're heterosexual? Get over it"

(As in, "Why do you feel the need to highlight the fact you're heterosexual??")

Straight (meaning hetrosexual) came from being the reverse of bent which was a part of a slang term for homosexuals in London (Bent as a 9 bob note)

I don't know about London, but in the US "straight" used to mean mainstream, and pretty easily evolved into meaning heterosexual from there (mainstream sexuality). My parents are aging hippies, and my dad still routinely refers to "straight people" when talking about some guy in a suit who works in an office building.

My dad is mildly homophobic. He believes in and votes for gay rights, intellectually he knows there's nothing wrong with it, but "gayness" still wigs him out. So it is funny to me whenever he refers to "straights" as people not like him.

I am old enough to remember the day when computer nerd meant you were gay automatically. "Hey you ever even had a girlfriend?". So even though I am not gay I held the shackles of that stigma as much as anyone who is really part of that social community. You have my support forever.

but there's enough horrible bigots out there that the non-white-heterosexual-male crowd feels the need to create their own safe space where they can avoid all the vile, contemptible nonsense from the general public.

Right, this is exactly it... you said it better than I probably would have.

Consider XBox chat, and the constant abuse and rampant homophobia, mostly from young men. That's the sort of thing that most gay gamers run into, all the time, and I don't begrudge them the need to take control of a place, and put the bigots on notice that their shenanigans will not be tolerated there.

It is a shame that they need it. Personally, when gaming, I don't care about your sexual preference, because I wasn't going to sleep with you anyway. But a lot of people do care, very much, and gay gamers often have to keep their shields up, when gaming, and I imagine that gets pretty tiresome.

Still don't understand why gay/lesbian/transgender people feel the need to highlight the fact they're not heterosexual. Ironically, the more they shout/scream/campaign about them being 'not heterosexual', the more they drive the wedge between heterosexuals and homosexuals.

In the UK, Stonewall ran a nationwide campaign saying "Some people are gay, get over it!"

My first response was "So you're gay? Get over it"

(As in, "Why do you feel the need to highlight the fact you're gay??")

Erm... because society generally assumes that people are not gay and tends to portray gay people as something unusual or as being stereotypically camp.Are you also offended that women like to highlight the fact that they are not men? All those ladies are just driving a wedge between themselves and us men.What about christians who like to highlight the fact that they aren't heathens?

Or, for comedic effect:

anti-xiphon wrote:

Still don't understand why heterosexual people feel the need to highlight the fact they're not gay. Ironically, the more they shout/scream/campaign about them being 'not gay', the more they drive the wedge between heterosexuals and homosexuals.

In the UK, [too many ad agencies to count] ran a nationwide campaign saying "[you should buy our product because it will impress the opposite sex]"

My first response was "So you're heterosexual? Get over it"

(As in, "Why do you feel the need to highlight the fact you're heterosexual??")

If homosexuals didn't highlight their differences, perhaps society would (eventually) develop a more level playing field? Own worst enemy perhaps? How many homosexuals feel they have to comply with the stereotype, not because they want to, but because they feel they must?

There are many places in the world where homosexual / transgender cultures are part of everyday life - in Thailand, some schools have 3 separate toilets - male, female and transgender. It's 'normal'. Sounds like a massive leap forwards for society as a whole - shame the West hasn't caught up yet.

Straight (meaning hetrosexual) came from being the reverse of bent which was a part of a slang term for homosexuals in London (Bent as a 9 bob note)

I don't know about London, but in the US "straight" used to mean mainstream, and pretty easily evolved into meaning heterosexual from there (mainstream sexuality). My parents are aging hippies, and my dad still routinely refers to "straight people" when talking about some guy in a suit who works in an office building.

My dad is mildly homophobic. He believes in and votes for gay rights, intellectually he knows there's nothing wrong with it, but "gayness" still wigs him out. So it is funny to me whenever he refers to "straights" as people not like him.

In the sub cultures I belong to we usually refer to the "normal" people as vanilla

Holy crap - the whole idea of a gaymers forum or group is to provide a safe place where LGBT can relax, talk about games, ogle at hot guys, and shoot the breeze without some dickhead coming in and spreading their hate. You straight people have the Republican Party where you can vent your hatred against LGBT folk and we have our gaymers corner of the internet world. You have your space to do your thing and we have our space to do like wise - if you've got a problem with that then tough luck.

Why is gaymer a word? Do we need to differentiate people? A gamer is a gamer, your sex, skin color or sexual preference shouldn't matter. It just segregates us all.

I'm guessing you never played online... I quit using my LIVE account because I was fed up with having to deal with the most bigoted, racist, and foul mouthed little kids ever to disgrace an online game. Yeah Gaymer is just begging to be turned into yet another derogatory term but there are already far worse in use every single day online. Playing online is like taking a step back in time to where bigotry and racism was out in the open and something people were proud of.

Holy crap - the whole idea of a gaymers forum or group is to provide a safe place where LGBT can relax, talk about games, ogle at hot guys, and shoot the breeze without some dickhead coming in and spreading their hate. You straight people have the Republican Party where you can vent your hatred against LGBT folk and we have our gaymers corner of the internet world. You have your space to do your thing and we have our space to do like wise - if you've got a problem with that then tough luck.

And how do they keep the trolls out? You know damn well a gamer forum like that would be trolled hard.

Still don't understand why gay/lesbian/transgender people feel the need to highlight the fact they're not heterosexual. Ironically, the more they shout/scream/campaign about them being 'not heterosexual', the more they drive the wedge between heterosexuals and homosexuals.

In the UK, Stonewall ran a nationwide campaign saying "Some people are gay, get over it!"

My first response was "So you're gay? Get over it"

(As in, "Why do you feel the need to highlight the fact you're gay??")

Erm... because society generally assumes that people are not gay and tends to portray gay people as something unusual or as being stereotypically camp.Are you also offended that women like to highlight the fact that they are not men? All those ladies are just driving a wedge between themselves and us men.What about christians who like to highlight the fact that they aren't heathens?

Or, for comedic effect:

anti-xiphon wrote:

Still don't understand why heterosexual people feel the need to highlight the fact they're not gay. Ironically, the more they shout/scream/campaign about them being 'not gay', the more they drive the wedge between heterosexuals and homosexuals.

In the UK, [too many ad agencies to count] ran a nationwide campaign saying "[you should buy our product because it will impress the opposite sex]"

My first response was "So you're heterosexual? Get over it"

(As in, "Why do you feel the need to highlight the fact you're heterosexual??")

If homosexuals didn't highlight their differences, perhaps society would (eventually) develop a more level playing field? Own worst enemy perhaps? How many homosexuals feel they have to comply with the stereotype, not because they want to, but because they feel they must?

There are many places in the world where homosexual / transgender cultures are part of everyday life - in Thailand, some schools have 3 separate toilets - male, female and transgender. It's 'normal'. Sounds like a massive leap forwards for society as a whole - shame the West hasn't caught up yet.

I've known gay people who found Hollywood's portrayal of homosexuals insulting and harmful. While I find the stereotypes hilarious I sometimes wonder why it's OK to do this with gays but not OK to do this with Blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities.

I think having your blog be called the gaymer or whatever, or your website being called that, whatever, that's perfectly legit as a trademark. But in the sense that "gamer who is gay", eh.

Though let's face it - who the hell actually uses this term? I could easily see him winning on the grounds that it hasn't been genericized, and frankly, it is sufficiently retarded that I hope it never, ever is.

I am old enough to remember the day when computer nerd meant you were gay automatically. "Hey you ever even had a girlfriend?". So even though I am not gay I held the shackles of that stigma as much as anyone who is really part of that social community. You have my support forever.